Against the Wind

Marianne swore me to secrecy until she had a chance to show her father her diamond ring, but she and Barry are on the airplane now, so I don’t think Carlo will have his surprise spoiled here. It’s official. Marianne is engaged. That’s the beauty on the left here. I’m half done with marrying off three daughters. I don’t think I could have survived five of them! (Reference to the description of Mrs. Bennett at the beginning of Pride and Prejudice.)

I have so many interesting clips, some about Honduras. I do have more insight though ancient to that locale. More later.

This is an old story of an old song. I suggest you read the link to the background story first.

For more than 45 years, the approach of July 31 has caused me nightmares of jungle combat, a queasy stomach, and a drifting away of my concentration . . . to a dank little island in the South Pacific.

But their deeds can never be silenced.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.

Then take a listen to the song sung a capella from you tube. Sorry I couldn’t find how to embed this one.

I suppose it’s possible to be cynical in the face of such heroism, but I cannot but cry, glad of such men, such deeds. Merely human, but rising to the full dignity of our possibilities. People are capable of such meanness of spirit, and such grandeur. Please, God, let me aim to be my best in what little things I do.

Michael Jackson. Oxycontin. Discussion question for libertarians: assume we all agree that drugs should be legal. Is a doctor who enables an addicted patient to take fatal doses a good doctor, or should he be liable for malpractice? Discussion question for non-libertarians: how, pray tell, is this an argument in support of our current draconian drug laws?

I’m off with the grand boys and will think about these later. They are interesting questions. Linda seemed a bit surprised I didn’t respond to the MJ demise. What’s to say when the world’s most talented pedophile dies? I was reading blogs on Big Hollywood about military heros that day so I happily missed most of the hullabaloo. As for his dying broke… he had assets and business acumen it seems. But he had a retinue of hangers on that blew threw money faster than he was generating it. Tough cookies, unless he owes you. Then really tough cookies. And what were you doing business with a known pedophile for anyway?

Ok, Ok, I know you’re dying to know what I’ve done in the way of interesting reading, and you truly are jonesing for a photo of the day. Maybe not, but “whatever.”

Yesterday I was ready to get a decision made about the next bit of round robin and start cutting fabric. Need to measure this piece so I can get the planning done in more specific terms than up to this point. I bought a replacement for my 120 inch tape measure after Cameron misplaced mine. Then I found the old one. Now I have two. I cleaned house the other day and thought as I put them away, I need to remember where these are. Now they’re both missing. I have a place where they should be. I guess I forgot where I think they belong when I put them both “away.” Today, I likely will be come the owner of a third 120 in. tape measure.

Meanwhile I put together another block from last year’s shop hop at the Houston festival. Oddest colors ever. But I’m kinda of liking them. I’ll aim to do another today.

Since I’m about as interested in getting something written as I am in mowing the yard, I have no clue why this grabbed me. A novel is not my aim in any case. But here’s why first time novelists aren’t the young things you might want to see on the dust jacket. “Why New Novelists are kinda Old.” Good writing, and a topic I found interesting.

…you know what? Writing sixty to one hundred thousand words of fiction is not something most people cannonball through, even if they assure you, with the appropriate amount of false modesty, that they’re really better at long-form fiction. Maybe they are, but they still had a long walk to get there. I’m better at long-form and it took me until I was 28 before I could do it. Meanwhile I’d been writing short for years up to that point, in the form of reviews and columns and humor pieces and (yes) occasional attempts at short fiction that I mostly abandoned after a page or two.

Now there’s some political humor that likely has gone viral. I didn’t find the embeddable on YouTube, but Jib Jab’s whack at Obama is here. Seems like it ought to be at least mildly funny even to the liberal types. I’m going to try henceforth to keep my political commentary at least on the humorous side. Here to save the day

The other day, I said I’d gotten links from Cousin Jim to some of his first photos. I personally loved a picture from Tulsa of the Philtower lit up and reflecting in a more modern glass monstrosity at night. It was some excellent night photography. But is will be recognizable to most.
Jim’s photo of Paris. My thought is that he needs to set up a place where he can sell 8 x 10 prints of that. I’d buy one of that and another of the Philtower photo.

And finally, from Wretchard, some of his excellent “overview” sort of writing. This guy sees the world…well his experiences are unique and he writes and puts together ideas in whys that astound me. The Molten Calf

The ability to recognize the face of tyranny is a fragile skill which cannot really be passed on, except as a critical attitude. As the twentieth century recedes into the past, a kind of antiquity has descended over the prophets of the past, who speak to us now only through old, cloth-covered books from second-hand bookshops or lying in corners at garage sales or lending libraries. Even 1984 is set in a time so long ago that it can only be portrayed in film as steampunk. We can no longer imagine “a boot in a human face forever” in a world where the Croc sandal may be the preferred footwear of militants. ‘A Croc sandal stamping on a human face forever?’ Who could credit such a tyranny, even if it were true? But the face of evil ever renews itself.

Lagniappe! It’s a two photo day. This from May 20 on the bridge over Bayou Lacombe. Three generations. I am such a beauty…. why did my modeling career never take off?

Yesterday I was rueing the state of my computational equipment… now I can post a photo.

Tara and Marianne got a bee in their bonnet about a month ago to take a long bike ride.  They rode about 15 miles… and well I did too, only I went half way with them and turned around and took the pickup to the end of their ride and picked them up.   My turn around point was Bayou Lacombe on the Tammany Trace.  The rebuilt railroad bridge over the bayou provides some jigsaw sorts of photos ready to roll.

From the bridge

I took several photos there, so more to come. The group shot was out of focus.. what’s up with that! My very expensive point and shoot didn’t function correctly?? I probably had it on manual focus from doing something else.

So bathwater awaits, and there’s a day to get into.

I went about setting everything out to reinstall windows on Marianne’s old computer, and discovered that I wasn’t sure the set of “numbers” I have are the product key for the operating system on my older Dell.   She long ago disposed of her installation disks.  So when I wasn’t sure I’d get past the product key business, I tryed a system restore.  The machine just balks.  An hour or two later I shut it down.

Computer repairman I am not.  But I’m sure enjoying the monitor.  Tomorrow is a bridge day so I won’t be thinking quilting or writing or anything else.

Two beautiful things hit my day today.   The Round Robin was in my mailbox.  I’ve fired up Electric Quilt and done some desiging.  Nothing’s grabbed me as the real deal.  What I wanted to do didn’t look right.  So I’ve been experimenting.  The other item of beauty came from Cousin Jim sending some of his favorite photos from the ones he’s taken with his new camera.  WOW!  I meant to ask if I could link to my favorite of the lot.  He’s really put some time and effort into some great photos.  I’d pay for them.

My friend Pete encouraged me to buy an internal disk drive, but I haven’t looked to install that yet because I wasn’t sure which computer I’d be using.  Now looks like I need to see if this old dusty case can accomdate another drive.  It’s been a while since I played amateur hardware repairman.

I feel like Mother, when she’d just give up and go spend a bunch of money on a new computer.  Sara suggested taking the puter to the electronics classes at school… wouldn’t be quick but probably a whole lot easier to repair than me trying to figure it out.

Sleeping on it seems right at this point.   No photo because the computer isn ‘t seeing the chip reader now.  Better day tomorrow.

Well flit!

Marianne decided since she has a brand spanking new laptop, she didn’t need her desktop computer, so she passed it on to me.  That’s grand and it’s easier to set up a lot of things than it used to be, BUT….

Sara I’ll send you a photo when I get email set up.  If I do.   Bellsouth insists I use Outlook or spend $99 for tech support.    I don’t think so!

So I went back, hooked up the old computer, copied down all the account settings and tried to fire it up again.  No luck.  And of course I need to print out all the pass words I’m missing… I may go back and totally clean this disk drive, and reinstall windows, but it was looking hopeful I wouldn’t have to go that route.

And much as I whine, I do have my old computer and it works.  So I can just fire it up, and probably will in the morning.  I spent a long while making a backup copy of my C drive a little while back, but it seems program files were not copied.

Ok, more than enough whining.  Of to bed.  Tomorrow I continue the fight.

Today I started in a new journal. Before writing in yet another boring composition book, I cut up a book of quilts and gardens and collaged the outside of the book. One of the photos was a lovely flower, totally detached from it’s background. So while riding my bicycle this eve, I decided I’d try that with some of the flower pictures I’ve got.

Well, I’d already passed the flower pictures, so you’ll just have to make do with our Cameron. Now if I knew or could easily figure out how to make the text in html go around the figure…well, I’d feel like I’d conquered the world. For a minute. Then I’d want to do something else! Mostly I just want to see what this looks like in the blog.

Thanks Linda and Judy for the comments on the very short story. I did start to realize how I wanted to reframe it earlier today, so I may do some rewriting tonight. Tomorrow is writer’s group and grandboys.

A couple of comments lately have been of the “encouraging photography” sort. Carlo said I need to find someplace to hang some of my photos. Linda called and we talked till her phone died! But she also said, “hang your photos someplace in public.”

This is perhaps to give the lie to such an idea. This is purely functional photography, and not even with the perspective cleaned up, which I can do.

This is a photograph of a page that Daddy carefully drafted into a page in the family history of a bible he purchased for that reason. He spent a great deal of time chasing down tombstones and following his family line as far as he could. The Pyeattes, his mother’s line were a French Hugonaut line settled in NW Arkansas. The Swift line is only tracable a couple generations back beyond my personal knowlege. But we cleaned out a photo file of tombstones bigger than I’d ever imagine when we emptied the house on 33rd St. in Tulsa.

This page is of the Brewster antecedents back to the Mayflower and one generation past. It may be of interest to my children, cousins. I have a copy of the photo with a lot more pixels if anyone is interested.

“Mother, when you watched Grandma die, did you see her soul rise from her body?”

Did I see a ghost form? No. But I saw the worst of Charles’ ghost laid to rest. Mother’s earliest recollection is of a long straight stairway in the middle of the night with people running up and down. She was the lost person in the scene. With no role, she was alone with her fear. Her older brother Charles died that night.

Grandpa never forgave himself for taking his family out to that old drafty farm house so his son Charles, his firstborn could have the life on the farm that he enjoyed and loved. My Grandfather’s grief was my mother’s guilt. She knew that the wrong child died that night. She spent the rest of her life trying to atone for imagined guilt.

In the interest of leaving old pains behind, we paper over them. Treated thus, they never heal. The intensity of that pain flashed out some sixty years later when she reprimanded a cousin grieving over a miscarriage. “Do not make your children compete with a ghost. They can never win. Quit talking about the one you lost.”

Usually her pain just simmered in the background unnoticed. It poisoned her marriage. In any competition between husband and father, her father was to be deferred to. It undermined the husband, my father. When her sons were born, the daughter, I was abandoned emotionally.

And Charles’ ghost laid a cold hand on the relationship with my daughters as they grew into young womanhood. As I was abandoned, I didn’t know how to be a mother to a young girl. To a large extent I abandoned all my daughters emotionally.

I saw my Mother rejoin her father, with Charles. Grandpa could welcome her, and she could put the old guilt down.

“No, I saw her respirations slow, and cease. I saw her rest.”